Does Google+ make a huge difference?
-
I run a website that's been ranked well for good keywords related to our business for some time. It was founded back in 2007 and has been there a while.
Recently a new site has popped up that ranks brilliantly for everything. It's a new site, and the only redeeming factor I can see is that it has an AddThis box showing the Facebook Likes and Google Plus Ones, and they are around 400 Facebook Likes and 80 Google+ (for every page that ranks).
Any other pages on their site which doesn't have any Facebook likes or Google Plus Ones, they don't rank.
Our site doesn't have any likes or pluses. Is this making the difference? I stress that other than this our sites are very similar, other than the fact we've been around over 5 years.
-
Just to follow up on this, today the competitor's site has disappeared from Google.
Again one up for decency! Glad to see things like this being punished.
-
Yes, all I am saying is the numbers are double. I have my own problems with google, so I am the last one to say how it really works, but maybe their ugly links don't fit the spam profile that would get them squashed.
Remember, google is not perfect. They can screw up just as any of us can. There must be hundreds of thousands or even millions of examples where people are looking at results and saying "why is that crap ahead of my site?"
-
I get most of what you say, except that they have put betting in their subheads. When looking at "sportsbet" as a google.com.au search term, I really don't understand why they should be ranked SO far ahead of us.
Regarding the linking domains, again, it's just spam. The links aren't real natural ones, and I don't want to go down that road.
I'm really losing faith/interest, call it what you will, in this game when a site like this is, to me, pretty clearly using dodgy tactics and is having this success
-
You competitor's site does have a lot of likes and a lot of G+ hits.
The numbers of the G+ are very close for each page.
That may mean they just bought 70 G+ hits or maybe they made their visitors hit up all their pages for some benefit.
I've had G+ on my site all this year. We've done almost nothing to get people to like or G+ us - they just do it on their own.
We have just over 1000 likes and 40 G+
So for that site to have 70 G+ on most pages and 100 on the front page, seems very suspicious to me.
It could be they have fooled google. They have also done some great keyword stuffing in the text near the bottom of the front page. Many of our stories only get 5 to 8 G+ hits. I think maybe one page has 12. Google WMT says we don't have enough for them to show any stats. Also, it doesn't appear that we get much - if any - benefit from G+ hits. To begin with, G+ was a liability as all it did was slow down our pages.
They also have bold and put Betting in their subheads.
They also have double the linking domains you have
Looks close to over-optimization, but maybe its not quite enough for the google algorithm to flag it.
So all of that said, I think they are beating you because of their onpage and offpage effort. You have done something similar to them, but they just did it better.
-
I mean the corresponding links to that specific page, which I agree, are spammy.
-
When you say corresponding links, do you mean spam? External links?
-
.02 on quick glance:
It probably has more to do with the fact that they're specifically targeting "sportsbet" on that page and have built corresponding links. Unfortunately, doesn't look like Penguin has got to this one...yet...
Again, this is my opinion after a very brief look.
-
Ok, here are the websites in question.
- My site: http://bit.ly/MvT3gI
- Competitior: http://bit.ly/N5fS0N
Here's an example of a search term that we are nowhere for - "sportsbet", and they are ranked around #4, which is a very good ranking: http://bit.ly/Mjwe4v
The rankings are very similarly good for all his pages which refer to each bookmaker. All have lots of Facebook likes and Google+.
The reason I think he's paid for the social likes is because the sites really aren't the sort to become viral, and get links in a "real" way.
Appreaciate any input into this!
-
Mark,
You can post URLs, however, you might consider using a URL shortener service. If you're willing to share the searches and sites, I'd be happy to offer my .02.
-
Social has/is becoming a increasing factor in rankings and will only become bigger in the future. I would strongly recommend getting into the social aspect. As for the "paying" for likes and such, defiantly stay away from that. Social is not all about trying to get higher in the ranking but about Brand Recognition and Reputation, Communicating with your fan base, customers and clients.
I know businesses that get around 50% of their customers from social networks such as Facebook and twitter. Its defiantly worth getting into and from what I have seen in the past 2 years, it’s no longer an option.
-
Thanks for that. I'm not sure what the rules are regarding putting URLs on here? That's why I haven't put the addresses up yet.
I know the site hasn't got good real social interactions, purely because of the type of site it is. I'm 99% sure that the owner has gotten these likes/pluses through paying people to like/plus the site, or something similar.
I don't want to go along the lines of fighting fire with fire, but if it works as well as it appears to with their site, then it's sure tempting.
-
It’s hard to tell since I can't see and compare both sites that you're talking about but that could very well be a contributing factor. It’s no secret that Google is putting more and more weight on social signals such as likes, followers, and social interactions. It sounds like that site has good social interaction and is getting rewarded in the rankings by Google but I can’t be 100% since I can’t compare the two.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to fix site breadcrumbs on mobile google search
For past one month, I have been doing some research on how to fix this issue on my website but all my efforts didn't work out I really need help on this issue because I'm worried about this I was hoping that Google will cache or understand the structure of my site and correct the error the breadcrumb is working correctly on desktop but not shown on mobile. For Example take a look at : https://www.xclusivepop.com/omah-lay-bad-influence/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ericrodrigo0 -
Does Google crawler understand & flag a blog post has text asserting sponsorship with dofollow outbound link?
I kind of know the answer, but just wanted to get some feedback from others. For the sake of argument, assume there are no other issues with the linking blog, such as: too many ads, thin content, etc. Question: If you make a payment for a blog post with a dofollow link, and in the blog post there is something to the effect of: "this post has been sponsored by..." Will Google crawlers detect that and flag that as an unnatural link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kekepeche0 -
HOW!??! Homepage Ranking Dropped Completely out of Top 100 on Google....
So I'm competing for a very competitive keyword, and I've been on the bottom of page 2 for a while now, ranking for my homepage, which is very content rich and has GREAT links pointing to it. Out of nowhere, last week I dropped completely out of the top 100 or so, yet one of my article posts now ranks on page 6 or so for the same keyword. I have great authoritative links, my on-page is spot on, all of my articles are super super high quality, I don't understand how my homepage, which has ranked for the main keyword for months on page 2, can just completely drop out of the top 100 or so.... Can anyone help provide some insight?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | juicyresults0 -
Duplicate categories how to make sure I don't get penalized for this
Hi there How would I go about fixing duplicate categories? My products sell in multiple category areas and some overlap the other - how can I go about making sure that I don't get penalised for this? Each category and content is unique but my advisors offer different tools and insights.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
Is horizontal hashtag linking between 4 different information text pages with a canonical tag to the URL with no hashtag, a White Hat SEO practice?
Hey guys, I need help. hope it is a simple question : if I have horizontal 4 text pages which you move between through hashtag links, while staying on the same page in user experience, can I canonical tag the URL free of hashtags as the canonical page URL ? is this white hat acceptable practice? and will this help "Adding the Value", search queries, and therefore rank power to the canonical URL in this case? hoping for your answers. Best Regards, and thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
What is the difference between using .htaccess file and httpd.conf in implementing thousands of 301 redirections?
What is the best solution in terms of website loading time or server load? Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | esiow20130 -
Will Google perceive these as paid links? Thoughts?
Here's the challenge. I am doing some SEO triage work for a site which offers a legitimate business for sale listing service, which has a number of FOLLOWED link placements on news / newspaper sites - like this: http://www.spencercountyjournal.com/business-for-sale. (The "Business Broker" links & business search box are theirs.) The site has already been penalized heavily by Google, and just got pushed down again on May 8th, significantly (from what we see so far). Here's the question - is this the type of link that Google would perceive of as paid / passing page rank since it's followed vs. nofollowed? What would you advise if it were your site / client? From everything I've read, these backlinks, although perfectly legit, would likely be classified as paid / passing pagerank. But please tell me if I'm missing something. My advice has been to request that these links be nofollowed, but I am getting pretty strong resistance / lack of belief that these links in their current state (followed) could be harming them in any way. Would appreciate the input of the Moz community - if they won't believe me, and the majority here agrees about nofollowing, maybe they'll believe you. Thanks! BMT
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CliXelerate1 -
Tricky Decision to make regarding duplicate content (that seems to be working!)
I have a really tricky decision to make concerning one of our clients. Their site to date was developed by someone else. They have a successful eCommerce website, and the strength of their Search Engine performance lies in their product category pages. In their case, a product category is an audience niche: their gender and age. In this hypothetical example my client sells lawnmowers: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-25 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-3 For all searches pertaining to lawnmowers, the gender of the buyer and their age (for which there are a lot for the 'real' store), these results come up number one for every combination they have a page for. The issue is the specific product pages, which take the form of the following: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower This same product, with the same content (save a reference to the gender and age on the page) can also be found at a few other gender / age combinations the product is targeted at. For instance: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-32/fancy-blue-lawnmower So, duplicate content. As they are currently doing so well I am agonising over this - I dislike viewing the same content on multiple URLs, and though it wasn't a malicious effort on the previous developers part, think it a little dangerous in terms of SEO. On the other hand, if I change it I'll reduce the website size, and severely reduce the number of pages that are contextually relevant to the gender/age category pages. In short, I don't want to sabotage the performance of the category pages, by cutting off all their on-site relevant content. My options as I see them are: Stick with the duplicate content model, but add some unique content to each gender/age page. This will differentiate the product category page content a little. Move products to single distinct URLs. Whilst this could boost individual product SEO performance, this isn't an objective, and it carries the risks I perceive above. What are your thoughts? Many thanks, Tom
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SoundinTheory0